“I understand that a dream job is not about dreaming. It’s all job. All work. All reality. All blood. All sweat. No tears. I work a lot—very hard—and I love it,” said Shonda Rhimes in a February 2016 TED Talk.
She continued, “When I am hard at work, when I am deep in it, there is no other feeling.” Rhimes called this the hum: an internal shift that she likened to the open road, a rush and God’s whisper—all in one.
It seems intuitive that one of the most powerful women in television has fervently pursued, and mastered, her craft.
But in an effort to find balance, and face her fears, the self-proclaimed titan said, “Yes.” This “yes” applied to public speaking, live interviews, acting and playing with her daughters. She chronicled the year of facing her fears in the 2015 memoir Year of Yes and spoke directly to her experiences on a TED stage.
Get your life, courtesy of Rhimes’ TED Talk.
Felice León is multimedia editor at The Root.